Sake
by tomiaru
Summary: hiko's, ken's and tomoe's thoughts while drinking rice wine. it's been done before, but i kinda liked the thought of them separately locked in thought but joined unknowingly in commiseration because of the drink and similarity in thought


**Sake**

A ring of light encloses the moon, as though the rays can go no further. I sit in darkness, listening to the hushed murmur of water stumbling in unlit byways, entering the cracked earth below my feet. Sake swirls a similar path across my tongue. Swallowing, I surrender to the impossibility of finding surcease in drink. As though I ever had. A sliver of light escapes to the earth. I see my reflection in the water, in the drink in my hand. I look old…still good-looking, of course, but definitely older than the last time I saw my face reflected. Just this morning, to be precise. Not as young, or as silly as that pupil of mine. 

He always had that determined look in his eyes…how violet can glow amber light is but one of the miracles in the boy. Such pretty eyes really…wasted on a swordsman of course. No one would be fool enough to engage him in a brothel. Hmmm…wait… they'd tried. When was that again? I could have taken care of that pitiful worm easily, but it was more fun to see my little nitwit's slow realization of what exactly he was being recruited for. That was the first time I'd seen that eye-color transformation…and a near-flawless execution of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu Tsui Zen. Not bad for a kid. Not as good as what I'd demonstrated, but hell, that's to be expected after all. 

When was the last time we had a drink together? Oh yes, his departure…I remember…

_"I didn't raise a damned ascetic. Pour the goddamned drink and sit down while you tell me what's eating you up inside you can't be still for even a minute."_

I knew what he wanted to say. He'd blathered on about it too many times for me not to know. He burned with it, his focus in training divided between the call of the sword and the pull of suffering…a discordant duet that rang as the steel of his sword cut across wood, as the wood splintered into a thousand echoes, triggering the memory of raggedly-jaggedly fashioned crosses on a field burned by the sun. I've always known exactly what goes on in his head. He sat on that rock with his body thrust forward, on the verge of acting, on the edge of appeal…all that repressed energy exhausts me to no end. The stupid ass wastes his time thinking about wasting his talent. He humored me that time, dutifully sipping his cup, biding his time and feeling around the words he'd rehearsed. And they came, after a suitably marked time…

_"Shishou…you've given me a gift. Why will you not allow me to use it for the good of the people? You saved me from the bandits, but who is to save them? They suffer from the injustices of the corrupt government…"_

_"And what would you know of politics, young upstart? You have spent most of your life in this mountain retreat. Do not tell me you take seriously the gossip of drunken louts in the taverns. I bring you there to meet women and you cloister yourself in a corner and eavesdrop on half-coherent conversations. The more fool you."_

He'd looked offended. He can't even hide his emotions. It's not just the eye-color...although that one's a dead giveaway. It's his stillness. You get enough of it when he focuses on you, but when he's angry, his ki goes outward and it almost seems as though he's enveloped in an invisible web of electricity, slowly reaching towards you and pulling you in. You feel the bite of the wind more strongly, the burn of sunlight more excruciatingly, and each leaf that falls crackles with energy, if not disintegrating with a snap that tears the silence apart. A mere split-second, and you have that unbroken web, that continuous surge of more-or-less stable energy. That time it was a bit more controlled. It occurred to me that I should get him angry more often. Just so he would learn to control the madness. He didn't allow me much time though. Ungrateful brat.

_"Surely it must be embarrassing for you to have raised such a fool as I." _

_"Ha-ha. You are absolutely right."  _What, the young pup thought I'd be affected by that sarcastic nip? The leaves kept falling around us, as I waited for the inevitable. Sometimes I can't help but wish the mountain wasn't so full of them. All that snapping cuts up what little peace I'm able to acquire with this bottle. _"I really don't know why I bothered. Whatever skill you have with the sword is eclipsed by the brain that's gone missing since you'd decided to interfere with the world."_

_"I belong to the world, as do you, shishou. Surely, you have not forgotten that you interfered with the world as well, when you rescued me? You told me I have a responsibility, especially for the lives of my three friends who protected me. Kasumi-san. Akane-san. Sakura-san. They died so that I may live…"_

_"And now you will kill so that others may live, is that not what you have chosen to do? Only this time you would not know whom it is you kill nor would the ones you protect know of your name. Only the group that you will side with will know of your existence."_

_"I do not long for fame. I do not ask for acknowledgment for what I may do. I only want to help people, ease their suffering…"_

_"You will commit murder, for that goal."_

_"To protect the innocent…if I have to…"_

I can still smell that rank bitterness of death, no matter swiftly dealt by me, upon me. I take one sip after another, but the taste of sake turns to blood inside my mouth. It doesn't matter where I go. It doesn't matter if I drown myself in drink. Nothing has any effect on this madness I've unleashed by my own will. My sword lies prone by this table, in a tavern filled with drunken cheer, in a place where men go to forget. They adopt the most careless positions. Why can't I be like them? Instead, I have my back to the wall, watchful, wondering if I will be attacked. There is no safe place. Not in a world where most men carry swords. Not in a life where shadow-warriors hide their wounds in the light of day. Not when the smell of blood follows a person everywhere he goes.     

How long has it been since I left my master? Seijuro Hiko taught me about sake. But little does he know that I have never acquired its taste. Not me. Even before sake, I learned the substance of blood. Young as I was when I started drinking, I was initiated even earlier to the other. Its thickness, its richness, its metallic taste…fresh, congealed, browned, gangrened. The familiar scar that healed after it bled. This newer scar, it won't heal but continues bleeding, continues taunting me, reminding me of my crimes. How can sake compete with that? How can this clear, thin liquid disguise the taste of the other? The fields have most likely been soaked in blood and sweat as well…does sake not come from them? Have we not buried the dead in those fields, long ago, long before some farmer came and planted his seeds, and harvested and distilled the fruits of his labor? And probably died amidst the same, in this unsafe world.    

_The innocent…_Given the opportunity, they must know the taste of sake. My friends…shishou poured the drink on their tombstones. Even then. The ones I've killed…were they not innocent? I don't think I can tell anymore. Shishou, I've forgotten…was I supposed to protect them, or destroy them? No. But it was justified. It is for the best. It is for the future. This too shall pass, shan't it? Round and round the top turns, curving this way and that. It shall pass. It shall pass. My past and my present have been littered with dead bodies. What of the future?

_I do not know their names…_

_Who could it be? Was he the one who delivered the death stroke? _He laughs as though he does not have a care in the world. Would he have been callous enough to kill and now sit here with his friends, drinking to another day beginning? Toasting his own self as though he had single-handedly ended the civil war? I cannot tell. Or was it his companion, the one with the puckered eyelid? That one looks as though he's had his share of sword fighting. But no, he looks ill, and grieved. He has known pain. Would someone in pain be more likely to be merciful? Or would he be the opposite, cruel and unflinching?  

They stare at me, wondering what a woman must be doing all alone, in a roomful of drunken men.

Can't a woman have a drink alone? Hmm…so many bottles…but so what? I have as much right as any of these men. I have more right than any of these men. They play their silly games, they pit themselves against steel and muscle, they sow grief indiscriminately, while women are expected to bury the dead and their emotions, scrawl their dreams in parchment, easily cast aside, easily burnt… 

I must be mad to keep coming here. I must be mad to have left Edo and run chasing after my beloved's murderer. How would I know him? How can I be sure? I come to this place to remember, I stare at every one of these men as though I could see through them, as though their minds were open to me and I had access to reams of their memories, like scrolls to be unrolled. But how can I remember a face I've never seen…how can I remember a death that was not my own? 

I want to see, I want to hear you scream out the name of your murderer. But would you have known? Was it a friend? Did both of you laugh, drink, and toast each other in this very room, before he struck you down? Were you betrayed? Kiyosato, speak to me. I've followed you here, I've gone to such lengths…you see, I've used up every memory we had. And now I am looking for the ones we did not share. What did you go through, in this place? I miss you so. 

Scream out the name of your murderer…I pray to heaven it wasn't me. _It wasn't me! _I wasn't here. 

_I'm sorry…_

_Is it enough to mourn the deterioration of the world? I worry over my student, but maybe I should worry over my having ceased to care as much as he does…enough to go down from here…enough to fall…enough to fail, if that is the case. It never is, with me. _

_I've killed so many…I have no right to grieve them and yet I do. I regret what I've done and yet I continue doing what I do…_

_Regret is bitter. I swallow what I feel. For that's what sake does. It makes the swallowing a little easier. But it doesn't make it any better. Oh no. You feel it so much more. You take in so much and you hope you'll vomit all the bitterness away…but it never happens. It stays down, in the pit of your stomach, roiling, agonizing.   _


End file.
